Wednesday, 10 July 2013

Going straight for the jugular perhaps the easy answer is:
because Christchurch crowds are too ‘fickle’ (the pc word for ‘shit’)?

Worse than Dunedin, come on?

Now one of the benefits of me having a messy desk is the ability
to dredge up old copies of the Groove Guide, Penthouse mags from the 80’s etc.

I found 4 of them, Groove mags as opposed to Penthouse of which
I only discovered 2, from this year and decided I would do a completely unscientific
study as to what percentage of N.Z bands graced Christchurch on their N.Z
Tours.

Auckland punters got all but 100% of the bands.

Wellington just over half at 60%.

Christchurch was 40% and Dunedin not far behind at 35%.

Rider: I did fail School Cert maths.

So Christchurch is definitely no longer seen as a must-do ‘destination’
for N.Z bands doing the traps.

Perhaps it never was, but traditionally it was always one
tare above Dunedin gig wise.

Bands are signalling N.Z Tours that is better framed as
North Island Tours.

This death spiral trend (less crowds mean less visits, means
less venues willing to have bands versus a local DJ) is replicated with
overseas bands.

I spotted in the latest Gig Guide that The Hard Ons aren’t making
the trip across the ferry, picked New Plymouth over Christchurch and the
Japandroids are appearing in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin, no Christchurch.

Just an hour ago via the Cheese On Toast Facebook link a
band I’m getting into, The Drones are crossing the ditch. Peoples of Wellington
and Auckland will no doubt enjoy them whilst I can but look on in envy.

This is all a sad indictment of Christchurch music-fans
malaise, people here have no one else to blame but themselves.

The post-earth-quake stupor continues to see people of all varieties
sitting-in front of televisions and computers wasting their lives away.

Sunday, 7 July 2013

The shoegazing sound is typified by significant use of
guitar effects, and indistinguishable vocal melodies that blend into the
creative noise of the guitars.

Common musical elements of shoegazing consist of distortion,
droning riffs and a "wall of sound" from noisy guitars. Typically,
two distorted rhythm guitars are played together to give an amorphous quality
to the sound. Although lead guitar riffs were often present, they were not the
central focus of most shoegazing songs. [Wikipedia]

The other night I was at a gig, the two bands were a blur as
was their music and shall remain nameless, least I up-set the guilty.

I wasn’t even that pissed, which is rather unusual.

Both guitarists, I caught the end of band A and start of
band B, possessed enough effects boxes of varying descriptions to make The Edge
jealous.

One had his rigs ‘nailed’ to a board, side by side for ease
of use and to move from A to B.

At $500 a throw there was a small fortune of technology on
display, playing through amps high on reverb.

And what does a small fortune of effects boxes get you over
same a single ‘fuzz box’ unit?

Say a better sound for the audience?

What say a discernible difference between the varying
devices?

Perhaps a significant marketable differential for the band
in question?

Well no.

It was a wall of reverby, wahy guitar sound punctuated by a
wailing bass-line.

Not to be outdone the bass players having plugged in their
respective instruments into an effects box of some persuasion.

The overall sound was filtered into homeopathic percentages.

Don’t ask me to tell actually what any of the songs were
about.

It was too loud to tell, people looked like stunned mullets,
a super 8 movie of 1950’s LSD experiments.

After less than an hour it actually got annoying as each
song drifted seamlessly into the next like a grunge version of a Yes album.